It would help quite a bit. WandaVision isn’t necessary other than “Monica was there and got superpowers”, but you need to know Kamala and her family.
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I have seen Agents of SHIELD “Framework” WandaVision, so I’m cool there. I’ll make sure to catch up on Ms Marvel before watching the movie.
So, on For All Mankind S4, I am stuck in this weird feedback loop where I can’t possibly take Daniel Stern seriously in a non-comedic role, while also thinking that Daniel Stern is perfect for the role of a rich executive turned NASA bureaucrat that landed the job due to politics and/or favors and may or may not be qualified but at least pretends to care. I genuinely can’t decide if this casting choice is a thud or 4D-chess genius.
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It took me a scene or 2 for it to click who that was. He’s playing the likable-snake role well
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We finished The Fall of the House of Usher, which should count as 19th Century science fiction. That was creepy, and even included a good bit of Edgar Allen Poe. It’s on Netflix.
One Piece on Netflix is a lot of fun. Do anime pirates count as science fiction?
Ok, so I’ve caught up in Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds. Really enjoyed both.
That leaves Discovery. I watched the first episode years ago and was underwhelmed. I just tried watching the second episode and my whelming remains under.
Group opinion time: Worth sticking it out?
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IMHO, no.
Disco only did two good things:
Mild Spoiler
The best thing was to introduce the Strange New Worlds era Enterprise with Pike, No. 1, Ethan Spock etc.
Major Spoiler
The second best thing Disco did was fuck off into the far distant future (for no good reason as it turned out) to end its Deepwater Horizonesque pollution of the timeline. Of course, it then set about fucking up shit in that era, like making the cause of “The Burn” the dumbest thing possible, but if they’re going to continue to make a mess, better to do it up there.
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I’d give it one season. The first couple of episodes are not great, but I really liked where the first season ended up. If you’re still not feeling it, bail out at that point. It doesn’t get better.
Season two still has its merits (the Enterprise crew, most importantly), but its “big bad” and “big mystery” aren’t very good.
The end of season two was the boldest storytelling choice in any Trek ever. Unfortunately, if that choice can be called a cliffhanger, the result is that it lost its grip and ended up splattered all over the rocky ground below.
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S1: cautiously liked
S2: loved
S3: hated
S4: hated less
S5 (coming next year): I have never had lower expectations for a Star Trek show or movie
If you can choke down S1 then S2 is objectively great. If you assume that the S2 finale is the series finale, it’s a nice prequel for SNW. S3 and S4 make you wade through massive amounts of heavy-handed social preaching, group trauma therapy, and deus ex Michael Burnham. It’s so goddamn disappointing because this show has so much potential across the board (plot, actors, characters) and a huge budget and they intentionally squander it over and over.
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FAM
I knew a Russian postdoc who lived thru the end of the Soviet Union. When the last gasp occurred (the attempted coup by old schoolers) he was one of the citizens who gathered on the steps of the Kremlin.
He said he went there with a sense of despair. He and many others thought that the freedom they were seeing would be taken away and he was prepared to just die out there in public rather than die quietly under a new/old repressive regime.
One surprising (to naive me) note: many older Russians feared the end of the USSR. They hated Glasnost and Perestroika because they feared change and most of all they feared/ hated the west because they believed what they and other generations of Russians had been taught.
Anyway for a show that runs fast and loose with a lot of shit FAM S4 seems to have landed on some good themes. And all of the above is to say I suspect Margo has a front row seat for the end of the USSR.
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FYI, Apple has dropped this Friday’s shows today. So new episodes of FAM and Monarch, at least, are up.
Monarch remains fun and intriguing in an implausible Indiana Jones kind of way.
I was really into kaiju movies and especially Godzilla when I was a kid but I’m enjoying Monarch way more than I thought I would.
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Hmm, y’all aren’t the first I’ve seen to recommend Monarch. Everyone seems to be on that same “surprisingly enjoyable” page. I’ll have to check it out over the holiday.
Is it possible to give a succinct, spoiler-free description of the Monarch plot? I see the ads and have no idea.
Did you see the recent Godzilla/Kong movies? Basically fleshing out that universe with globe trotting, flashbacks, and mysteries. Oh and big fucking monsters.
I have never been into kaiju movies. I think the only ones I’ve seen are Pacific Rim and the 1970s remake of King Kong (does that count?).
However, I am very much enjoying Monarch. I had no idea until the other day that there is a Monster Cinematic Universe, and this show is part of it.
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Monsters: what did we know and when did we know it.
It’s a movie but apparently the new Japanese produced Godzilla Minus One is also quite good.
King kong skull island is fantastic. Dont need to like big monster flics at all to enjoy that one.
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Two episodes in, I’m with y’all on Monarch. This is fun.
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